The present invention relates to an on-vehicle communication device, a communication control method and a vehicle and specifically relates to the on-vehicle communication device which communicates with a roadside device, and the communication control method and the vehicle for use in communication with the roadside device.
Recently, examinations on a technology for performing communication between the vehicle such as an automobile and so forth with the roadside device which is a communication device installed on a road, that is, so-called road-to-vehicle communication. A communication device used for communication with the roadside device is loaded on the vehicle in order to achieve the road-to-vehicle communication. In addition, the vehicle is requested to achieve various types of communication such as communication with another/other vehicle(s), communication with the outside over a mobile phone network and so forth, not limited to the communication with the roadside device. In view of the above, it is important to suppress power consumption for communication in the vehicle. That is, power saving of the above-described communication device is requested.
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2009-232065 discloses two technologies as technologies for controlling a start timing of the road-to-vehicle communication. In a first technology, an on-vehicle communication device switches communication to be performed from vehicle-to-vehicle communication to the road-to-vehicle communication in accordance with whether an electric wave from the roadside device concerned is detected. In addition, in a second technology, the roadside device is equipped with a communication device which performs communication by one communication system (referred to as a communication system A) and a communication device which performs communication by another communication system (referred to a communication system B) which is different from the communication system A. Then, in the second technology, in a case where the vehicle enters a communication area of the roadside device by the communication system B and receives position information of the roadside device concerned by the communication system B, the on-vehicle communication device switches the communication system to be used from the communication system B to the communication system A just before the vehicle enters a communication area of the roadside device concerned by the communication system. A on the basis of the position information of the roadside device concerned. Thereby, the on-vehicle communication device starts the road-to-vehicle communication with the roadside device by the communication system A. That is, in the second technology, start of the communication by the communication scheme A is controlled by obtaining the position information of the roadside device by utilizing another communication system B outside the communication area of the roadside device by the communication scheme A before execution of communication by the communication system A.